Bruising aside (my shins have gone an interesting colour, too), the pole dancing class was quite interesting. About a dozen people, four of us there to try it out and the rest who'd been going for about a year. Lots of tattoos and piercings, one bloke who was terribly intense about it all and spent the whole session hogging a pole and much of it hogging one of the two instructors. (It was nominally two people per pole, but in reality there were two people with a pole each, the beginners with two between them, and everyone else in a very cooperative gaggle between the other two.)

We started with a fairly high-intensity warm up, and finished with stretches. In between, there were poles. It was quite interesting watching the more experienced people doing their moves (and occasionally failing spectacularly at them; one of the poles had a circular crash mat around it, which seemed sensible), but we got rather more time to do that than I would have liked: the instructor would show us a move a couple of times, watch us doing it for about thirty seconds, and then wander off to help other people for ten minutes while we practised it a bit more and then went "Ok, we can do that now, um".

I think that even without the bruising (and I noticed that the instructor was also covered in bruises, so I don't think it was just that we were crap!) it wouldn't be for me: not very structured and a mix of it being a solo thing but requiring cooperation (in sharing poles and in, eg, sticking your arms under someone's bum to support their weight while they try a new move) that I don't think I'd really get on with. Still, it was fun to try! I had thought about trying their aerial hoop class, on the grounds it might be less bruisy, but I think that the same would apply there.

Today, I'm a little sore in the shoulders but happily was able to get my boots on without too much agony.

Jo's been for her swimming lesson this afternoon. It was a different person in the tank with her, and she was a bit nervous about that, but it went well. On the way home, we had a short walk and met a very sweet spaniel. The owners asked if they should hold his collar, and I said it was fine as long as he didn't charge at her. What he actually did was walk up to her and then, when she ignored him, drop his ball in front of her to see if it would make her like him!